The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Lavoisier chose the dead Greek as a fountain from which to draw the
elements of his new verbal compounds, assigning to those elements
arbitrarily new volumes of meaning, and constructing from them, with no
other governing principle than his own judgment of what seemed best, a
totally new Language, as it were, adequate to the wants of the new
Science. Still, despite these imperfections in the method, the demand,
with the growth of the new ideas, for a new expansion of the powers of
Language, in a given direction, made the contrivance of the great
chemist a successful interpolation upon the speech-usages of the world.
It is certainly not therefore inconceivable--because of any governing
necessity that Language should be a purely natural growth--that other
and greater modifications of the speech of mankind may occur; when--not
an arbitrary contrivance upon an imperfect basis and of a limited
application is in question, but--when a real discovery, the revelation
of the true scientific bases of Language, and limitless applications in
all directions, should be concerned.
On the other hand, the extent of the practical applications of strictly
scientific principles to the Structure of Language is subject to
limitation. Even mathematics, theoretically the most unlimited of the
existing Sciences, is practically limited very soon by the complexity of
the questions involved in the higher degrees of equations. In the same
manner, while it may be possible to construct a Scientific Language
adequate to all the wants of Language, in which exactness is involved;
that is to say, capable of classifying and naming every object and idea
in the Universe which is itself capable of exact classification and
definition, still there remains an immense sphere, an equal half, it may
be said, of the Universe of objects and conceptions, which have not that
susceptibility; which are, in other words, so complex, so idiosyncratic,
or so vague in their nature, that the best guide for the formation of an
appropriate word for their expression is not Intellect or Reflection,
but that very Instinct which has presided over the formation of such
Languages as we now have. We may accurately define a triangle or a cube,
and might readily bring them within the range of a Universal Language
scientifically constructed; but who would venture to attempt by any
verbal contrivance to denote the exact elements of thought and feeling
which enter into the meaning of the verbs _to screech_ or _to twinge_?
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